Maize Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Champaign

Simply the best. I grew up eating authentic Mexican dishes through family and I have to say this restaurant hits the mark and is far better than any restaurant I've ever been to - and that's not just lip service. It was so good that I was in a great mood the rest of the whole day simply because I discovered this place that I can come back to. Items are clearly made from scratch and it's noticeable by the food's presentation and flavor well before you ever find out by talking to an employee about it. The food does all the talking.

First things first, the corn tortillas are incredible, having the same soft consistency of a flour tortilla but with all the fresh flavor and perfectly chewier texture of a corn tortilla. I could happily fill up on just these tortillas alone.

The salsa is high quality, and chips are clearly made fresh.

The items we ordered were: • Queso Fondito w. Chorizo • Mega Tlacoyo • Beef Birria Tacos • Mango Margarita • Tamarind Margarita

The chorizo queso was insanely good, and the way that they encrust the cheese onto the cast iron it's served in makes it a delight to get the bottom parts out and onto their fresh tortillas the dish is served with

The mega tlacoyo was perfect. I think something people might misconceive from the photos of the dish is that it could be hard to eat or not have enough texture to it because it's maybe hard to tell what is in the stack of food at first glance - but it's actually very easy to cut right into perfect squares to where each and every bite is forkable and gives you some of everything without falling apart. The skirt steak layer was spot on, and the tlacoyo's bottom piece is very unique - a soft homemade blue corn tortilla stuffed with a thin layer of brown beans.

The beef birria tacos were the best I've ever had at a restaurant or even from family, hands down. They even go the extra mile of actually encrusting cheese onto each tortilla before generously mounding their expertly cooked beef. The dip is very well balanced by being extremely flavorful while not being heavily greasy, so the flavor doesn't rely on grease at all and oddly enough it actually sits pretty light on the stomach and doesn't run thick

The margaritas were great and paired well with everything else

I have to also mention that the prices here are extremely reasonable all around.

This was our first time, and I am already marking the calendar for the next time I get to eat here again. The tortillas reminded me of my late Abuela, and I could feel the passion for great Mexican food being communicated by the staff through every plate they served.

Thank you to everyone on the Maize at the Station team for all of your hard work. Our server yesterday was Jaselyne and she did a great job!

Note: I took screenshots of other relevant photos since I was too busy eating to take pictures, ha. These photos are a good representation...

I'm at odds here. I do think the food is great (not amazing, but better than any Mexican food you can get in Champaign-Urbana), but man...the service has been a little hellish the two times I've gone. I thought it might have been a fluke the first time, but on a recent trip here, my friends and I were stuck there for over two hours.

When we walked in, around 4 p.m., very few people were at the restaurant, and the hostess seemed annoyed that we wanted to sit outside. We assumed this meant it was super busy outside--nope. There were maybe five tables of people sitting outside.

There was a party happening in the bar area inside, which might explain why it took us such a long time to get our drinks and food, but that party cleared out within 30 minutes of us being there. It was painstaking to order drinks and receive our drinks (we constantly had to ask) and get more water. And once we were finally able to order food close to an hour in, the food probably didn't come for another 40 minutes. Then we couldn't receive our check.

Perhaps the most annoying part of it all was our waiter, who seemed rather flippant about it all and kept laughing heartily as he said sorry about how busy they were (they were not, by the way). He also charged us for two things that never came out and that he said we wouldn't be charged for.

I'm OK with giving this location such a low score because you can head just a few blocks east to the much smaller, much better Green St. location, which is full of nice people who appreciate efficiency. I can't fathom going back to the Chestnut ST. and giving them a...

The the dinner itself was very tasty and many people in my party agreed that their's was good. But do to my overall experience I will never be eating here again and many in my party will not either. They said that they could seat up to 10 people yet they still split us up, and would not let us put our tables together because of covid. Then they should not tell u they can seat up to ten. We ask for napkins at the beginning because the salsa was getting messy and did not get them until after our meal got there and after asking two additional people 4 them. We ordered guacamole + 2 Cheese dips. When we got them you could barely get the cheese out with a spoon because it was so hard. And we were already out of chips when they were delivered. We obviously order these items to eat with chips immediately ask for more and didn't get any until after meals were delivered and we also had to ask more than one person for them. And by that time we started getting full on our food and didn't want the chips anymore. Our food was delivered and we had to wait on silverware and ask multiple people. Our waitress was nice enough but the overall experience was extremely lacking. I would have been more understanding if they were super busy, but they weren't. The inside was basically empty besides a couple...